Hurricane Flood Cars and How to Avoid Buying One

Up to one million cars and trucks have been damaged in the flood waters left behind by hurricanes Harvey and Irma. Listen in as Scott and Ben tell you how to avoid buying a hurricane damaged car or truck.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Go behind the wheel, under the hood and beyond with
car Stuff from how stuff works dot com. I welcome
to car Stuff. I'm Scott, I'm Ben. As always we
are joined with our super producers. We have a new
producers stepping up to the board today, not just a

(00:23):
co worker, but our friend, Paul Decant. Welcome Paul. Yep
and uh, luckily, and now I don't know that Paul.
Did you drive here today or did you walk? He walked.
Paul walked and it was very very close, to be
very close, surd for him to have a car. I
think to bring the work and and you drove today?
I did drive, yes, and uh often. I think the

(00:45):
majority of people in Atlanta and in other cities across
the United States typically will drive not only to work,
but to their friend's house, to their sports games, to
their like kids graduation. You need a car. You need
a car in most parts of the US. Yeah. Now
I have to ask you that question, same question. You've

(01:08):
recently moved. I did, yeah, but but not very far so.
I moved down the streets. Do you still walk to
work or do you do? You? Now? You know, take
the car even though it's a short distance. I like
to I like to walk to work because the street
that we're on is a pretty entertaining street. Uh, and
you know, it's nice to get a little bit of exercise.
But if I have some errands to run, or if

(01:28):
I'm leaving on a road trip after after we get
out of the old nine to five, then I'll just
take my car up here and then leave straight from work.
Smart move. It's all right, I got some moves. I
got a few. But well, I guess we should consider
ourselves among the lucky. If we're in the the we're
in the southeastern United States, and if we were any
further south, there might be a little trouble with trying

(01:51):
to get around in our cars because a lot of
cars were flood damage not only by well, in our case,
it would have been by a hurricane irma. Um. If
you were a little bit for a west on the
coast of the Gulf of Mexico coast in Texas, I
would have been Hurricane Harvey. And that's what we're going
to talk about today. Right we're recording this in twenties seventeen,
right at the beginning of fall, end of summer, where

(02:14):
and at this point in time, as we're recording quite
a few cities, communities, towns. Uh, we're devastated by either
Harvey or Irma. Still digging out or bailing out as
you want to if you want to put it that way. Really, um,
we're talking about hundreds of thousands of cars, and we'll
talk about that in a second. But right here in Atlanta,

(02:34):
we had a tropical storm issued and that was the
first time ever where it was it an actual hurricane warning.
It was a tropical storm warning, and it was the
first issued in the history of Atlanta. Yeah, it was
pretty strong. I mean I was at home during that time,
and uh, you know, lots of branches down in rain,
but no flooding. Uh. And we're farther off north, you know,
away from the coast, away from the water. That really

(02:55):
we get. We get the wind, we get the rain,
we get um, you know, power outage, as we get
some light damage things like that. And I shouldn't say
light damage because there were some people that had some
serious tree damage here in town and even a couple
of deaths in Atlanta from falling trees. Four is that correct? Yeah,
I think it was four three, three or four. I
think it's four. So it's it's still you know, the
winds were still a big deal around here, but nothing

(03:16):
at all like what Florida saw what you know, the
panhandle of Florida. And then it kind of moved even
a little bit west of Atlanta, so it didn't really
hit the coast of Georgia like we thought it was
going to. But they got winds and rain and all
that stuff. And um in Florida they had a significant
amount of flooding. And and I'll tell you this is us.
Soon after we're recording this, this is the very weak
that it hit us. And you know a lot of

(03:37):
the reports that were reading are saying that it's still
technically ongoing. The storm hasn't completely fizzled out yet, still
headed north and west, and uh, you know, Harvey, there's
kind of in wrap up mode there. They got some
totals semi calculated, I guess at this point, yeah, the
ballpark estimates. But still this is this very early day, uh,

(03:59):
this very early day stuff. At this point, Scott, I
have an interesting story they might enjoy that brought me
to this episode we're recording today. What's that Alright, So Monday,
when the storm hit in Atlanta, a lot of buildings
were closed, a lot of people were told to stay home. Uh.
The previous day, Sunday night, I had actually I had

(04:23):
taken my car and put it in the parking deck
here because there are a lot of old, large hardwood
trees around where I live, and that, yeah, my spider
sense was telling me it could get ugly. So I
parked the car on Sunday night. We lost power during
on Monday, and I said, you know, it can't be
that bad outside. I've got an umbrella. I've got a

(04:44):
decent jacket, and so I went exploring. Did I tell
you this off? But I know what the winds are
like they were They're gusting up to I think it
was sevent It was. Yeah, it was astonishing the force,
you know, and especially the umbrella is gone. But the
umbrella is gone. It did just like like you see

(05:07):
in the old slapstick films where it reversed and then
left your hand. I did put it in a trash
can because I but I could have just let it go,
but I when I add to the problem. But as
I was walking down our city streets and seeing everything
closed except for I think one Chinese restaurant, and power
out across all over the place. Um, I noticed that

(05:32):
there were a lot of cars just city willy nilly
and Atlanta has Atlanta had a temporary problem with high
wind and falling branches that at that time, right, and
a lot of cars got crushed in the metro area.
But Atlanta also has a historic problem with flooding. Yeah, yeah,

(05:53):
you're right, and well we didn't have a lot of
flooding here though at this time. We just didn't get
enough rain. I guess trees down. It's funny Atlanta, you
wouldn't guess it, But Atlanta is almost I've heard it
described as a city in a forest rather a lot
of green trees here. If you're from another large city,
you might not understand exactly what that's like until you
drive through Atlanta. Like you said, there's a lot of

(06:14):
large hardwood trees that I mean, you know, big enough
around that if two people were to join arms, you know,
that's how big the base of the trees would be.
In some cases, And I believe it or not, some
of those you know, they get soaked with lots of
rain and and they'll tip right over like they're nothing,
and they crush houses and cars and people and all
kinds of horrible things. So you were smart to move
your car out of the way. Now, the flooding, however,

(06:34):
the flooding affected Texas and Florida a lot worse than
it did here in Georgia. Now, in Texas, I've heard
estimates around five hundred thousand to six hundred thousand cars
and trucks were flooded or flooding you know considered you know,
total you know, flood out cars, total loss. Hurricane IRMA. Uh,
we don't yet know what's what the totals amount the

(06:56):
mountains there, but they're expecting roughly the same, maybe on
a lower end on that one. So maybe you know,
four d five hundred thousand of the numbers that I've
seen thrown around, Um, not sure if that's gonna, you know,
prove to be true or not. But we're talking about
between the two hurricanes, and those hit within a week
of each other. It's a couple of weeks of each other,
about a million cars and trucks that are potentially on

(07:17):
the used car market as flood vehicles now potentially on
the used car market. Now, this is this is hoping
that people do the right thing if they're insured, they're
going to be reported as as damaged, you know, flood damaged,
and the right thing is going to happen. And we'll
talk about what happens with an insured vehicle. If they're uninsured,
there's a good chance that that car will be cleaned

(07:37):
up and someone will attempt to put that on the
used car market, either here in the United States, possibly
in Mexico, might go all the way down as far
as you know, Central America, even South America. It happened
with Katrina, It's happened another earthquake or I'm sorry, hurricane
situations where flood damaged vehicles have made their way to
other countries, and sometimes people know what they're getting. Sometimes

(07:58):
people know they're buying a flooded vehicle, which it's a
salvage title vehicle, and they do want to ye, they
want to take that chance to roll the dice, I
guess and uh and see what they get. But um,
I read an article in Automotive News before we get
into our main focus here, because there's something a little
bit diabolical happening in Texas right now and we want
to get to that. But first I want to tell
you that I've read an article in Automotive News just

(08:20):
this morning about Mexico and how they're bracing for the
possibility of flood damaged cars making their way across the
border Mexico City, especially because I think it was after Katrina.
They said thousands, if not tens of thousands of used
vehicles that were damaged in Katrina made their way into
Mexico City. And then of course we're dispersed from there
throughout the rest of the country. So you can see

(08:41):
that this is a big deal for all the regions
surrounding um, you know, Texas and and not just you know,
not just really really localized either. I mean, this is
far reaching. This could go up to Maine, this could
go up to you know, all way up to the
far northeast corner of the United States. It could be anywhere.
Really Mexico against Central America. It happens, and we'll tell

(09:01):
you later what to watch out for. But Ben, we
do really have to talk about what's going on in
Texas and and uh, you know some of the scammers
that are hitting the people that have been ravaged by
this hurricane. Yeah, absolutely so. Uh, similar to the situation
with Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, earlier. Hurricane Harvey has,

(09:24):
as we said, devastated the Houston area. And with these
with these gigantic natural disasters, one unfortunate thing that always
happens is the fraudsters get in there early. And we're
not talking about looters. We're not talking about car thieves. No,
we're not talking about insurance scams and not really, we

(09:47):
are talking about tow truck and record services that are
are doing a real disservice to their community. In some cases,
now not all. Now we have to point that out too.
It's a bad apple situation. It's that's exactly right. As
we've said, oh many times in this program, there's just
a few they are causing a lot of problems, like
a few characters as we'll find out, that are that
are really really causing some trouble down there. And here's

(10:09):
what's happening. So in the wake of Harvey, there are
hundreds of thousands of abandoned vehicles left in the Houston
area and the surrounding you know, the surrounding communities. Wreckers
have started kidnapping some vehicles. According to the Insurance Council
of Texas and their spokesman Mark Hannah. Hannah is saying

(10:32):
that some records, who he does go out of his
way to characterize as a small number of people have
been pulling vehicles from the water and then charging owners
as much as four to five grand to get their
cars back. So they're kidnapping cars and holding them for
rams their non consensually pulling them there. It's like it's
like if you parked in a legal space and someone

(10:54):
told your car and said, Scott, you can have your
you can have your VW back for the low low
price of four grand. What are you gonna do. I
mean that's pretty much car theft. Yeah, really yeah, And
he says, you know, the guy um was his name.
Hannah was saying that they're telling people if they do
use a record service and make sure that these caution
whenever they're asked to sign anything, because uh, you know,

(11:16):
just read the small print. There could be in there.
You know this this four or five thousand dollar feet.
So you know, aside from the ones that are just
grabbing cars off the road and taking them back to
their impound lot, uh, there's also people that are willingly
signing their vehicles over somebody saying yeah it's out there,
I can see it. In the middle of that that
lake that used to be main street, you know now
you know, pull it back in and they say, fine,
we'll do it, and they bring it back. And then

(11:37):
of course there's you know, all these fees they had
add up, um I think as administrative fees, and they
make up a lot of different bogus fees. Yeah, in
order to make to make this equal you know, four
or five thousand dollar per vehicle. Now we should point
out to this is an article from car and driver
guy named David Muller wrote this, and this is back
in um it was on September one, I think when

(11:57):
officially the hurricane and Texas wasn't even over really until
that September three, So this is the early early days
of the of the hurricane. I'm hoping that they stopped
this from happening, but I have a feeling there's still
a little isolated pockets. So absolutely, these these car kidnappers,
are you kidding? Supply and demand, my friend, because they're
already there's already this tremendous shortage, this dearth of tow

(12:22):
truck vehicles or tow trucks, and then tow truck drivers
or pilots and there's one hundred and twenty counties that
are exactly. Hannah's office said that because of the massive
amount of vehicles and the huge number of owners who
are praying for any tow truck which is in short supply. Uh,

(12:44):
these folks, these guys are able to pull this scam
um on like earlier in the month. Uh. They said
that there were about one hundred thousand car and truck
owners who had already submitted insurance claims for flood damaged vehicles.
Of the those, seventy will likely be totaled. And I
think that's a conservative estimate if I'm being honest, So

(13:05):
it probably is. And you and you know, the thing is,
that's that's the rush right there. It's not so much
that people want to get the stuff back this in
their car because it's likely nothing, you know, nothing that's
worth any value at this point. It's been in a
flooded vehicle for a week or week and a half
or whatever at this point. Um, the rush is to
be able to get that that insurance paperwork kind of
turned around and in progress so that you can get

(13:26):
a new vehicle, because these people will be stuck without
a vehicle for who knows how long until that check
arrives if if they're not in a a position to just
go out and out right by another vehicle from a
dry region. And this is only the beginning. I'll give
a just to further emphasize the demand for toe druck
drivers here. Uh, there a place called the Insurance Auto

(13:52):
Auctions Incorporated or i a A, which is a unit
of of a larger auction service, has already put out
the call for over a thousand out of state or
out yeah, out of state tow truck drivers. So that's
interesting because we usually think of you know, lineman and uh,
you know, people to restore power and people. Uh, I

(14:14):
guess linemen would do that, right, but people to restore power,
people with with medical training and things like that. We
don't think of needing needing one thousand extra tow trucks
in an area really, right, But Houston is Houston is,
if anything, even more of a sprawling metro area than Atlanta.
So with that in mind, there's no way the city

(14:37):
really functions without personal transport. Oh yeah, you're right, because
again we're talking about one d and twenty five counties
that were flooded. It's not just Houston proper. It's it's
everything surrounding it. But but Ben, you know, that's not
the end of the story by any means, right, There's
there's a lot more to this. Um. You know, after
all the vehicles are pulled out, and after all the
vehicles are are in their proper place, you know, whether

(14:59):
that's in a salve lot or whether it's you know, um,
you know, in a scrap yard or something, you know, whatever,
where they're going to be crushed. Um, there's a second
wave of trouble that begins, and that is when all
of these cars begin to make their way to the
used car market. As we said, you know that Mexico
was bracing for UM and and of course you know
other parts of our country should be bracing for this
as well. This is unbelievable. Last year, so a year

(15:24):
prior to you know, these big two big flooding events
that happened in the United States, UH, the National Insurance
Crime Bureau states that there were probably likely two hundred
and seventy one thousand, four hundred and four flooded cars
that were back in use. So they're back on the
roads now. I would bet that's a mix of salvage vehicles,
cars that people had no idea were in floods. Uh,

(15:45):
you know, just a big combination of the two, you know,
uninsured vehicles that somehow made their way into the market. Um,
the insurance the insured vehicles hopefully didn't make their way
back onto the market. But that's it's huge number. That's
also a very specific number. I wonder how they got
exactly that number. Yeah. Interesting, Yeah, I wonder how much
of it is an estimate. And you know, to be

(16:05):
completely honest, that number has probably changed. It's unfortunately likely
increased since the time of publication. Well, the warning here
should be that uninsured vehicles are the ones that can
be put up you have put up for sale eventually
with no disclosure of ever having been flood damaged. So
you won't see a flood stamp on the title or
salvage or anything like that. Yeah, now, this is this

(16:28):
is my opening. I'm gonna give you a hand out
here that I printed for this specific purpose in a
moment here. But um so that's again the National Insurance
Crime Bureau. Right, they're talking about uninsured vehicles, and you
might think, well, how many vehicles in Texas really could
be uninsured in these counties just along the coast, right. Yeah. Well, um,
you know a spokesman from the i c T. And

(16:48):
the i c T is the Insurance Council of Texas. Um,
well that was a Hannah again, Mark Hannah. Um. He
said that about fifteen percent of Texans generally drive without insurance.
What's fifteen percent? So when something like this happenstent of
those cars that you're seeing in the in the flooded area,
just on average are not insured at all. That's just

(17:10):
a complete loss that lost everything. So and of the
Texas motors that are insured, this is actually good news
about comprehensive coverage which would cover flood damage. Now, but
I'm gonna hand you, um this this thing that I
printed out here when I saw that number fifteen percent
of Texans that you haven't seen this before, but when

(17:33):
I when I read that fifteen percent of Texans generally
drive without insurance, I thought, there is there is no
way that that many that large up a percentage would
would drive without insurance. But it turns out that Texas
doesn't even make on this list I'm gonna I'm gonna
share with you, doesn't even make the top eleven states
with drivers with the least number of UM uninsured or

(17:56):
the most number of uninsured motors rather. So this comes
from a site called statistics brain dot com. And the
sources are not just from them. It comes from the
National Association of Insurance Commissioners or the n a i C,
the Insurance rest Research Council, and the California Department of Insurance.
And this is very recent from August. So these are

(18:19):
good numbers. Holy smoke. So here's here's the deal. UM,
I would think that would be high up there this list.
For some reason, instead of giving ten, a gave eleven.
I'm not sure exactly why. We can go down the
list if you want, but I don't think we need
to read all of them in the percentages. But starting
with the the state with the highest percent of uninsured
motorists is Oklahoma. Twenty five point nine percent of motorists

(18:42):
in Oklahoma are not insured, which means there is a
one in four chance. There's a more than a one
in four chance that if you are in the inner
state anywhere and you are involved in a car accident,
you are s o L Isn't it unbelievable where a
family show so that acronym is straight out of luck.

(19:03):
Now the states, and again Texas at doesn't even crack
the top eleven here. Now we'll just list down. I mean, okay,
so there's nine percent, it goes down to fifteen point
nine percent, so it gets it gets very close to
where Texas is. But I have a feeling there's more
states ahead of Texas. Alright, So the list if we
just go from one to eleven, so the most like

(19:25):
the highest percentage moniture motorists is in Oklahoma. Again, the
next is Florida, then Mississippi, then New Mexico, Michigan, Tennessee.
I'm from there. Tennessee is number six with twenty point
one percent of motorists are that are uninsured on the roads.
Then it's Alabama, Rhode Island, Colorado, Washington, and then Arkansas

(19:51):
is at number eleven. I'm not sure why they included Arkansas,
but again at fifteen point nine percent, there's always room
for Arkansas. It's the jello of statesm is wonder where
and then you know, of course there's also if you
go to to the site to statistics brain dot com,
you can find the states with the lowest percentage of
uninsured motors, which is on the good side. Massachusetts is

(20:12):
killing in Massachusetts number one at just three nine. That
makes me feel like they caught one guy. Isn't that something?
I mean, can you believe it? When in that area.
So they're gonna face a total loss in this case,
you know, they're not going unless they decide to keep it,
you know, unless they decided to keep their flood damaged vehicle,
which is a whole another uh candid chin chillas. I'm

(20:36):
doing different stuff other than like bags of cats, right,
you know what, I think, maybe this is a good
time for a break, you know, a word from our sponsor,
because we're gonna come back and talk about what happens
to the insured vehicle and we're back before Before we
go on, Scott, I do have to point out that

(21:00):
I know insurance can be kind of a yawn or
or yawning session for some people, but it's crucial in
these post disaster times because those states we name that
have the highest level of uninsured drivers are probably also

(21:20):
very likely in the US to be states with higher
than average percentages of flood cars too, you know, or
salvage cars, you know, cars bought off some guy named
like fast eddie at the back of a gas station.
Unreliable stuff. This this um, what we're going to see
is that after hurricane or after you know, a massive

(21:42):
uh destructive active nature, these things don't stay in one
area or one state. They proliferate, they spread out. And
you might be listening and think, well, I love in
Portland's Everything's gonna be fine. Don't be so sure. Do
your due diligence. Will explore that, but for now, we

(22:04):
should talk about what happens if you actually have insurance.
You make a fantastic point because there are always catastrophes, floods,
things like that happening all over the United States, all
over the world. You really have to be diligent about
looking for the right signs. Now, we'll tell you about
signs and the signs later big right insured vehicles. Now
this is the like the okay version of the people.

(22:24):
They're gonna be okay at the end of all this. Right,
the people that yeah, well I hope. So I mean
if they have the right type of coverage, I guess,
the comprehensive coverage which would cover the flood damage. As
we said, seventy of Texans had it in that area apparently.
UM So, the insured vehicles, they're they're deemed typically typically
in a flood situation, they're deemed as a total loss
because you know a lot of the electronics are destroyed,

(22:46):
um or they were you know, someone try to continue
to drive in the water, you know, sucked water into
the cylinders and you know water doesn't compress. You know that,
you know what happens. Um. But typically they're deemed total
loss and they'll be retitled with the Department of Motor
Vehicles and the new atoles will declare that the cars
and trucks have been flood damaged, and information about that
will be stated in any vehicle history report that will

(23:07):
ever come up about the vehicle that is attached to
that vent, that that VN for that engine, that that car,
that's well, that's kind of important to remember that it's
attached to that vent as well. Um But most of
the flood vehicles will likely be parted out with their
undamaged components if there are any finding new life elsewhere,
according to the National Insurance Crime Bureau. So that's good news, right,

(23:27):
I mean, if it's not damaged, if it's if it's
deemed something that's salvageable that will find a new life
somewhere else, someone can make use of those sensors, those
parts or whatever. But very circle of life. It's a
bit of a dangerous game to play, though, isn't it
that you know, you can ensure that those sensors haven't
been damaged or that part hasn't been damaged. It kind
of depends the level. I mean, looking at some of
the photos of Houston, some of those cars are up

(23:48):
to the roof and water. Those are not selving, and
some have been completely submerged for days. Yeah, you're right,
that's completely under That's something else so will we'll touch
on in the course of the show today. Is as
as cool as it sounds for everything to be reused
if there are components that look functional or even if

(24:09):
you know what, even if they test well, because these
components are typically tested before they resolder and anything. Sure, um,
due to the nature of flood damage, you still can't
trust it. Not to sound paranoid, just you still can't
trust it because one of the things, one of the
most us like, one of the most deceptive types of

(24:33):
damage of flood does to a car is wiring and
electronic components and they can even seem to behave and
seem to be pretty cool, right like that O two
cents or whatever is totally you know, down. I was
gonna say down to rock, but that doesn't make sense.
You know, it's it's slowly functioning, but it's compromised. But

(24:55):
it has been compromised, and there is unfortunately no silver
bullet method for predicting when it's going to break at
that point, and it could be it could be, uh,
six months from now, it could be six hours. Yeah,
and if and not just I mean not just the component. Okay,
so we were talking about um, you know, submerged vehicles,

(25:17):
vehicles that have been completely underwater. If it's just a
couple of feet, sometimes you can, sometimes you can get
some of those modules out of that vehicle. If you
know where the water line is, you know, it's possible.
But again that depends on how much time they spent
you know, close to the water. I guess if it
was an inch away from the water surface and there's
high humidity, you know, those electronic models have been compromised

(25:37):
in some way, you know, more than if they were
parking somebody's garage or just daily use. Now, according again,
to the in the n i c B, the National
Insurance Crime Bureau. Some of those flooded vehicles may be
purchased at bargain prices, cleaned up, and then taken out
of state, where the vent is switched and the car
is retitled with no indication it has been damaged. Now

(25:59):
that when you're switching a VIN on a vehicle, that's
really dirty play and really dirty play. Yeah, it's it's
a crime. It is, I mean, it was. It's a
it's a crime, and it's also a crime. I think
it's a crime too. If it was an uninsured vehicle
that you know, you just don't report the damage, you
clean the vehicle up, you sell it. I still think
that's a crime. I think that you need to report
that because you know the trouble that ensues from that.

(26:22):
I don't think I could ever have a clear enough
conscious or a Yeah, I guess that's what I say it, right,
I wouldn't have a clear conscious after I sold a
vehicle like that to somebody. You you couldn't sleep at night. No,
I couldn't. But I mean, I guess an auction house
that specializes in salvage vehicles, that's what they do, but
people know in that case that it is a salvage vehicle. Sure,
a lot of times they're buying them just for parts anyway. Yeah, sure,

(26:43):
And and this is this is sort of a case
by case thing. But in our opinion, and I think
I speak for both of us here, you should just
not mess with salvage titles or flood flood damage cars
because again, you don't know what you're getting. Look, Scott's right,
there are people who will um to turn a quick profit.

(27:05):
They will absolutely try to tart up the car externally,
you know what I mean, they'll uh, they'll they'll try
to get rid of water stains and mildew, but that
smell is pretty tough to get out. As far as
replacing seats, yeah, they'll re upholster stuff, but you can.
We have a podcast that you and I did a

(27:26):
while ago, Scott on uh ten signs of a flood
Damaged Car. So we recommend regardless where you are in
the US, um or in Mexico or wherever you're listening to,
is worldwide, worldwide. I mean, I doubt somebody would ship
flood damaged cars across the Pacific, but I don't know. Man,
floods happened across the Pacific. That's true. Yeah, so we're

(27:50):
not just talking about just this event. And that's the
That's the thing everybody has to remember, is that you
know that that flood that happened in your region, no
matter where it is in the world, if it happened
last summer, watch out for those cars right now or
you know, whenever it is. I mean, if it's a
month ago, watch out for those cars. And especially if
you're someone who goes to auction. Yeah, and that's and
also you should, uh, if if it's your first time

(28:12):
going to an auto auction, do not go there planning
to buy a car. Plan to go there to watch
what happens and learn the ropes. Go go a few
times and learn the ropes. You know, talk to some
of the old timers there. Hey, we had we had
a lot of good advice in that podcast and that
it was ten ways to spot a flood damage car
and it was back in May. If people want to
go to you know, car stuff show dot com and

(28:32):
check that out, you can search for it'll come right up.
You've worked that plug in so well, man, you almost
feel bad for pointing it out that was great. How
you're welcome. I'll try to do that. Thank you throughout
this podcast. I wanted to yeah, I wanted to add
the reason, especially if you're in the US, especially if
you're in the region of the US near Houston, Texas.

(28:53):
The reason this is so important is because if you
are looking for a car in the next few months,
to be even more diligent than you would have already been.
And I know everybody already knows the rules of buying
a used car and investigating to the nth degree, which
is a great use of your time, but be even

(29:14):
more careful. If you're doing a percent, please do a hundred. Yeah,
here's three especially important things that you can do. First,
vehicle history report, absolutely okay. And then after you do that,
then check for a salvage title, or maybe even first
check for a salvage title if you want to do that,
then go for the vehicle history report. And then there's
another place that I want you to go. You can
you can, of course, you know Carfax and all that.

(29:34):
That's usually um, you know, that's okay. You can get
you know some some you know, uh, you know, bumping
dent work information from that, but or maybe even a
bent frame information. It's not no, not really, not really.
It won't always catch everything, um, but you can go
to something called a UM the n I c B
s VN check system. And if you go to n

(29:56):
I c B dot org and you look under theft
and out Awareness tab, the Theft and Fraud awareness tab,
you'll see something called VIN check. You can submit the
VIN and just find out the vehicle history. It goes
a little bit more in depth. UH covers salvage records
for its, you know, for insurance companies, and it reports
or represents rather about eight of the auto insurance market.

(30:16):
So it's fairly complete. Again not one complete. So you know,
if if there's this little bit of doubt, if you
have just a tiny little bit of doubt when you're
buying a used car about you know, it's history, it's
past history. UM. By the way, that is a huge
red flag. Anyways, if you if you're you're questioning of
vehicle's history, there's probably a reason if you have a

(30:38):
gut feeling about it, you know, follow that gut. Um.
But there are some things that potential buyers can check for.
You know, if if if you do suspect that maybe
it was a flood damage car and you want to
you want to clarify that little bit of undocumented history.
Check things like, you know, water stains and mildew or
maybe even for silt under the doormats or even beneath

(30:59):
the headline. And if you can find silt underneath the headliner,
that obviously that vehicles bend underwater. UM Also checked on
the dashboard. If you find that the interior is fading
UM and door you know, like door panels as well,
you know top, you know, top of the dash that's understandable,
I guess, especially in the region. Like yeah, but if
but if you find that the door panels are starting
to fade as well, that's not really the typical. Look

(31:22):
for rusted screws in the console or other areas where
the water wouldn't where water would normally not accumulate, you know,
these places that shouldn't be rusted. If they're rusted, you
should really question that. I mean, I know that, you
know it's humid here in the southeast, but it's not
that humid. Typically those things will be okay, especially on
newer vehicles. UM also check to see if there's mildew
or grime in the seatbelt or tractors. That's one area

(31:44):
that we specifically called out to remember in the fledged
damage color because it's one that everybody forgets to clean, right,
and so that's it's a really not to sound too
forensic about it, but it's it's a really great way
to figure out what's at actually going on in a car,
even if a car has absolutely no suspicion of flood damage.

(32:05):
Those things are so rarely clean that you can tell
what kind of snacks people eat and grows. It is
gross and it's a pretty it's pretty simple thing to do,
and it's as simple as just pulling the seatbelt completely
out as far as it'll go. A lot of times
people will only clean the seatbelt as far as it
you know, it's required to pull out to cover their
own body. So you pull it all the way out
and check it out and look down inside there with

(32:26):
a flashlight if you have to. But um, again, check
out the seatbelt retractors. That's usually a good sign. Foggs lights,
that's one of to me, that's a really good one
because somebody can assiduously clean even unto the seatbelt retractors,
but they can't really fix those windows you know, especially

(32:49):
if you see a fogged instrument panel. Oh yeah, I
know what you're talking about. Then yeah, game over. Yeah,
the gauges, the gauge caster is fogged up. That means
there's there's dampness inside the dos and don'ts it. Oh
and you you talked about lights. Now, that could be
a crack in the lens, of course. But but if
you don't see a crack in the lens and yet
all the all the tail lights and the headlights are

(33:09):
all fogged up, that is a bad sign. Of course.
Look for new upholstery or carpeting that doesn't seem to
match the vehicle. You know. Again, they'll go so far
as to replace seats and vehicles and and you know
of course uses the shop backs on the ceilings and alright, ceilings,
the headliners just all over. So there's some really smart
things you can do, and again we outlined a lot
of them in our podcast. I think, so if you

(33:30):
go back and listen to that one, you'll be fine.
But that's just kind of a starting point. Really. Um,
I hate to make everybody so paranoid about used cars
in this area, but I don't be paranoid. Well, it's true,
you really should. You should be. But I think we're
gonna see a lot of these turning up. We're gonna
see news stories in the next several months. I think

(33:51):
of you know, auction houses that are selling the cars
that were formally uninsured that you know, either just we're
never reported, were cleaned up and sold and and and
then you know, give the new owners a lot of trouble.
And this is changed thing. Yeah, and this is more
than just petty frauds or crime. And it's more than
just an inconvenience to someone buying a formally drowned lemon,

(34:16):
because this this stuff can have physically dangerous consequences on
the road. And Scott, speaking of fantastic segues, will be
back after a word from our sponsor, and we're back.
And uh and Ben, we were continuing our talk about
flood cars. But oh man, I think we've probably covered,

(34:38):
you know, the scammers. We've covered um, maybe what to
look for when you know, buying a used car in
this area or it really any anywhere, let's anywhere. And
and we we did say that the the scamming toe
drivers are again just a very small segment of population personally.
We'd like to thank all the tow drivers out there

(35:01):
who are busting their humps to rescue these cars, as
well as the people working the electric lines night and day,
night and night and day. I mean, everybody's pitching in.
Everybody's doing a fantastic job of of getting the getting
everything cleaned up as fast as possible. So yeah, we
do appreciate the help that they're they're providing. And again,
bad apples, just a couple of bad apples that are

(35:22):
that are uh, you know, forcing stories like this, but
people have to be aware of stuff like that. But
that's important. So hopefully someone in that area is listening
to this and will benefit from this and say, jeez,
I almost was nearly nailed for a five thousand dollar
towing bill, And yeah, hopefully, Gosh, I think you can.
If you don't sign anything, I think you have a
case you can make too. But it's tough to ask

(35:44):
people to do that in a crisis situation. Yes, what
if somebody decided that after the flood, after their car
was you know, the one on Main Street there with
the the uh, the water all the way up to
the headliners one off about ten thousand cameras, right, if
it was the camera you have, the silver one. They

(36:04):
decided that they if they decided that they wanted to
save that car. You know, that's a car that I
brought my daughter home from the hospital in. I can't
part with that. I mean, flutter nuts, you know, Hurricane
Harvey or not, that car means something to me. I
gotta keep that. Uh, I gotta keep that two thousand
four cameras cold dead hands. Okay, can they do it? Yeah,

(36:27):
that's a very interesting question. I have a feeling you
might have some answers of guidance. Well, okay, maybe I
just gave you a bad example, because I'm gonna start
off with a couple of uh disclaimers, because I would
say no, Yeah, the answer in that case, I just
gave you a terrible example. But the answer is no
to that. Now. The real answer to this comes from

(36:47):
an article that was written by a guy at gelot Nick,
David Tracy, and he wrote this just just a couple
of days ago, September six, two seventeen, so you know,
after Harvey had hit, but not before IRMA. Okay, So
so a marine between these answers very simple though, and
really it boils down to this off rotors do it
all the time. Think about the jeep vehicles that you

(37:08):
see going through extremely deep you know, mud puddles, water,
you know, crossing rivers, that type of thing. Off roaders
do it all the time. But there's a couple of
things that we have to pay attention to. And these
are really really important, and it doesn't apply to every vehicle.
So you know, the camera that I gave you as
an example as a bad example, because there's a lot
of electronics on board, right, we'll talk about that in

(37:30):
a second. But and this also applies to freshwater only.
So if you ever have a car or truck that's
been flooded by saltwater, it's just complete junk. Get rid
of its saltwater is a different game. And I don't
know if it's like, of course that would be brackish water.
I guess that ended up in the Houston area because
it's right on the Gulf. But it was also was

(37:50):
trillions of gallons of rain they said flooded that area.
The salt content. Probably Yeah, so brackish water, right, because
that's what they call it. I think I think that's it.
You're right, You're right, all right? So, um, his point
David's point is that you know, there are hundreds of
thousands of cars that you know, had these these trillions
of gallons of rain on them, or you know, the
flooded them to different levels. You know, some up up

(38:12):
to maybe a foot or two, others right to the top.
Some are completely submerged. But if you're lucky, there's a
few things that you can do to save your car.
If you're one of the ones that, um, you know,
flooded one or two feet and you weren't you weren't
trying to start the car, you didn't run the car. Well,
you know the water was up as high as it was,
there's a chance that you can save that vehicle. Um. Now,
I don't know if we should really go to in

(38:35):
depth here because it's a long article. It really does
have a lot of information, but this is essentially from
a letter that he received that was coming from someone
who I think they had a grandfather who was rebuilding
a fifty six Ford Victoria and of course, you know,
part of the Big Texas flood, and you know grandfather
the great sentimental value I guess to the car, but

(38:57):
they didn't want to get rid of it, and they
were wondering if they would be able to keep it
after the flood, because you know, it was one of
these flood damaged vehicles. He had kind of a long answer,
you know, but again, off roaders do it all the time.
I guess, I guess. Um David is someone who does
a lot of off roading in ge vehicles and says,
you know, all the time I'm crossing you know two
three four ft you know, deep mud puddles. It's possible,

(39:20):
but but it may be difficult in your situation. So, um,
he goes through in this article if you want to,
if you want to check it out. What's it called again,
ben Uh? This is called how to keep your Car
running after a flood from Gelatinic right, and um, the
sections that he goes through it and he goes through
everything the engine, the transmission, the differential, transfer case, breaks,

(39:42):
cooling system, fuel system, interior, and even the electrical system.
So it looks ugly, it does, I mean, but you know,
of course he's he's got a stripped down vehicle that
really doesn't he doesn't care what it looks like. It's
not you know, a car that he's hoping to maybe
take to a show or anything like maybe uh, you
know this person's grandfather was with this ford. However, uh.

(40:02):
He points out that because this this is a fifty,
the electrical system might not be as complex as something
from the modern era. And really a lot of this
boils down to, uh, you know, the component the electrical
components that were damaged. So if you know, you have
sensors that were completely underwater, as you said, Ben, they're compromised,
they are unable to unable to be restored, you have

(40:23):
to replace them. Um, and all the wiring that goes
along with it. But on a fifty, relatively few a
few wires compared to something something as modern as an
as an OH four camera. Um. But there's if you
go through this whole thing, and again it's several several pages,
it's it's really long. We're not going to go through
it piece by piece, but he does point to an

(40:43):
article at the end. He says, now, if you want
to save a flooded car, now for whatever reason, if
there's sentimental sentimental values we joked about earlier with the camera,
but some people do have cars like that fifty for
that they do have, you know, some type of memory
attached to or or some type of attachment. They just
don't want to get rid of it for whatever reason. Um,
you have to do a lot of things. You have
to ensure that there's no water in your cylinders. You

(41:05):
have to keep the fluids decontaminated, you know, by replacing
and flush and all that stuff. You have to clean
the interior completely, and you have to pray that there
were you know, and not in the Ford case, but
pray there are not too many sensors and wires that
were actually below the waterline. Um, there's actually a lot
to think about when you're trying to bring a car
back from flood damage. And that's not even accounting for
corrosion that might occur when water introduces dirt into hard

(41:29):
to clean parts of the body. So, you know, like
you you had mentioned before. I think it was a
couple of podcasts ago where you you two were talking
about water in the door of one of your cars.
I don't remember which car it was, but um, your
uncle I think it was, or cousin or somebody figured
a way to drain that and probably saved your door
quite possibly, Yeah, well likely, I mean, if it had

(41:49):
stayed for too long, it would have rusted out. And
you know rusted right through. That's the same thing that
happens with a flood damage car. Is that water is
you know, accumulating in areas that you can't even see,
or it's being held in um you know, absorbent material
and kept in place and and all that stuff. I mean,
it just it just over even a matter of weeks
or months, can lead to RUSS that you just simply

(42:10):
can't really come back from without completely rebuilding, replacing that metal.
And there's a further I'll even take this a step further.
There's a further concern, which is that let's say a
car has is harboring water from flood damage in Houston,
and it is sold, uh maybe down south close to

(42:31):
the equator where it's even hotter or even weirder. It's
sold up north somewhere where it's colder. And now the
water that's already inside cavities or absorbent materials in the
interior of the vehicle, now the water is changing due
to temperature. So now the water might be freezing inside,

(42:53):
it might be evaporating. Right, it's just bad news all around.
Oh sure, yeah, it's absolutely bad dude. So you don't
want any part of that really. But if you do
decide that you have some type of attachment to a
specific vehicle, and you know it's your grandfather's car, and
you know it's been the family for eighty five years
or whatever, uh, and you feel like you have to
hang onto that car, but it was flood damaged. You've

(43:14):
got a real dilemma in your hands. What do you do?
I mean, do you scrap it? Do you do you
hang onto it and know that it's just gonna fall
apart in your garage or your driveway, or do you
try to recover from it? You try to fix what's
wrong with it as quickly as possible, because that can
be a real money pit. That can take a lot.
I can take more than it's really working. You know,
I've seen it happen before. It reminds me of that

(43:35):
old uh God, that old Roman Greek story the Ship
of theseus uh, you know, where somebody has they have
a ship and it's sailing around the world, is slowly
replacing and repairing it until one day everything on the
ship it's brand new. Yeah, And I know that people

(43:58):
sometimes end up in that situation, specially with the classic cars.
We're like, oh, I fully restored this awesome vehicle. It's
cherry now, but is it really or did you just
keep the chassis? You know what I mean? Essentially he
bought he bought every new part from a catalog. It's
a new Chevy or whatever it is with a vintage shell. Yeah.

(44:20):
I guess a little bit of a rest of mine. Yeah, yeah,
in some sense, right, I mean, even though you tried
to keep everything original, It's just you have to be
careful because that can happen if you open that door. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, Now,
you know, Ben, I think I think everybody kind of
understands that it's a it's a risk to try to
rebuild a flood damaged vehicle. Just let the insurance company
have a look at it and let them determine what's

(44:41):
going on. In most cases, I would suggest against it. Now,
I've got I've got two things that I want to
cover here. I actually have three, but I'm gonna save
one for the next podcast, okay. And one of these
is a surprise. One is a surprise, and I think
the other one I just want to kind of run
this idea past you. All right, all right, so are
we in mode? This is not the not the surprise
for you at the end that I wanted to surprise

(45:01):
you with. I wanted to know if this would work.
And it's something that I read in a forum. It's
not my own idea, but it but it really intrigued me,
and I wonder if this would work. So someone had
written about, you know, they're they're questioning all the people
that were trying to you know, put their precious vehicles.
You know, they're they're they're restored vehicles there, you know,
the tuned vehicles, whatever, even the family drivers up on

(45:25):
blocks or you know, like I saw people who are
trying to put cars that were you know, up three
or four ft in the air so that they were
out of the floodwaters reach, you know, like as high
as they could possibly get them in their garage. Made
a lot of sense, right, try to get them high up.
Here's another solution, and tell me if this would work
in your opinion. Alright, So let's say that you get
a giant, i mean really big, thick, thick piece of plastic,

(45:47):
almost like something that you would use to um, you know,
for construction. Maybe very very thick plastic. Doesn't matter if
it's clear, dark plastic, whatever, just very very thick, a
lot thicker than a garbage bag or something like that.
And you put that on the on the ground in
your garage, and you drove onto it, so all four
wheels are on that plastic. And then you simply took
the corners of that plastic and bunched it up almost

(46:09):
like a bag, like you put your car in a bag.
And as long as all four you know, all sides
of that that plastic are up high, you know you
secure the secure them, um if you attach them to
the rafters up above, or if you just simply tied
it at the top with a rope, or if you
were a UM, I guess if you weren't worried about
you know, flood getting the flood water is getting up

(46:30):
to the top of the door, if you just tucked
it into the the door openings, I guess, so the
window openings, even if you were only worried about you know,
one or two ft of water. But what if you
were to attach to the corners of that plastic to
the I think the best scenario might be attached to
them to the rafters in your garage. See, your car
is essentially in this big thick plastic bag. Water should

(46:52):
not be able to get to that, right, flood waters
that slowly rises up. I mean it would, It would
move and compress, and I'm sure that you have to
deal with the air that's and escape that bag right
as it compressed around it. But isn't that wouldn't that work?
I think it's I think it's a great start to
a fantastic idea. So remember how we had talked about

(47:13):
in in Detroit how Ford had sealed up in plastic
some of their old models at Fortnite. I can't remember who,
but there was a warehouse full of it. It's a
warehouse I don't remember, but it was. It was a
smart idea, it was, it was. It was at a fort.
I think it wasn't there was a warehouse at a
fort I believe Wait that I love to dig through.

(47:35):
That's a deep cuts, a vague memory. But they had
them in us. They were they were plastic, but they
were inflated with fans, right, so that nothing was was
able to touch them. The plastic wasn't touching the bodies, right,
And they were kept this way successfully for a long
time decades. Yeah, so I think you know, the fan
might be getting a bit fancy for the average car owner.

(47:56):
But what I would be concerned with is uh having
the opening at the top just sealing off. I understand
the engineering necessity to allow venting of air, but my
concern would be the standing water in an enclosed space,
because if it's essentially just protecting the car, but the

(48:21):
garage is already filled halfway with water and the water
is not going anywhere, then I can easily see that
compromising plastic by splashing over it when someone comes through,
and like maybe even evaporating and condensating back onto it.
So I would I would say it's a fantastic idea

(48:42):
and the way to make it. Tell me what you
think about this, ladies and gentleman friends and neighbors. I
would argue that it should be completely sealed if there's,
if there's a way to do it. And I'm still
trying to think, because there should be some sort of
venting mechanism, maybe at the very top, you know, because
that's an opening though, Yeah, because water is so heavy.

(49:04):
How about this? Okay, that's so smart to spitball in
this back and forth. There's one way vent what if
you know, you know those um machines you can use
to vacuum pack uh food or whatever. What if you
I mean, even if it's a small thing and it
might take you half an hour to do it, But
what if you could What if there was a kit
you could buy the head this plastic a bag that
you could drive on too, and then it's something like

(49:26):
a thermal device that would seal crap, that would seal
the edges and then at the top you left it
opening a certain amount and you and then attach it
to like a blower that works in reverse. It just
out right, or even your long just engineered to be
a one way vent. Okay, this is too good. Shut
your mouth. We can't we can't go on because this
is going to be a idea. So if you vacuum

(49:47):
pack your car in a giant plastic bag in your
gradge it sounds ridiculous, But if we can make it affordable, man,
it really could work. If we can make it a
system for like less than what do you think less
than four Well, I tell you would think that. I
would think that you know, five hundred thousand people now
would buy that in the in the Houston area because
they know the value of something like that. Scott Listen

(50:09):
with your ability to create these astonishing, amazing ideas and
my inability to feel bad about exploiting these ideas, there's
nothing they can stop us but a straight to the top.
I think I actually think that's a good idea. All right,
it's a great all right. So you heard it here. First,
car stuff, car stuff, trademark, registered, trademark, whatever, whatever it takes,

(50:32):
it is your idea. I asked for no more than
thirty percent, all right, So let's move on then. So,
and I like the listener's opinion on if that would
work or not, if they have a better idea, I'd
like to variation on that that that might work. All right,
So here's the surprise, And well we'll keep this a
little bit brief, but um, I know we're wrapping up.
Tesla plays into this, and this is particularly with the

(50:54):
the IRMA evacuation, at least I read about it for
the IRMA IRMA victims, so the potential IRMA victims. So
let's just say that you're in Florida and you've got
a Tesla Model S or Model X, and we all
know that there's a limited range on these vehicles. So
I think I know what you're gonna talk. Okay, you
probably already have read about this thing, all right, so

(51:15):
you know you're you're limited to I can't remember the
distance on it. I want to say it's like two
or something like that. You know, Model S typical. I
think there's a little bit more here and there um
or a little bit less in some cases. So here's
the thing. When Tesla realized that there were a lot
of Tesla Model S and X vehicles that were trying
to flee Florida, uh, they did something very nice. They

(51:36):
the automaker remotely unlocked the full battery capacity of Model
S and X sixty and sixty D vehicles, giving them
the power of the seventy five battery packs. Seventy five
kill a lot our battery packs, so they gave them
full capability. This this opened up my eyes to something
that I had no idea Tesla was really doing. Though.

(51:58):
So when you buy a new car, typically you get
the full capability of that car, right you you get
everything that's available in the vehicle. When you buy a
Model S or X, either the sixty or sixty D model,
you are presented with a series of options when you're
when you buy now, among those are the distance that
the batteries can take you. So there's arbitrary distances put

(52:20):
in place that Tesla can then create priced heres um
on its cars despite identical hardware inside. So you've got
the exact same battery as someone who has the seventy
five kilowat hour battery um in a in a sixty
And I'm putting air quotes around us any sixty or
sixty D vehicle. I think that's just ridiculous. I kind

(52:41):
of do too. Now. Now, of course, the the sixty
and sixty D vehicles are offered at a lower price range.
They are in fact the least expensive um. But here's
the thing was, when you buy it, you're able to
add on, So you can you can opt to have
the full battery power at seventy kilowatt hours, right, And

(53:02):
that's a greater range. And I think it costs something
like six thousand five dollars to unlock that extra fifteen
fifteen kilowatt hours on a battery versus if you wait,
if you make the purchase and then later you decided
to want to add that on ten thousand dollars extra.

(53:24):
Has somebody found a way to just jail break it themselves. Now,
you can't do that that the company controls it. So
so what Tesla essentially did was when they realized that
all these people were fleeing Florida and they maybe not
have the range that they needed to get to the
next gas station, they flipped a switch and gave them
an additional what is it like, forty miles I think
is what it was. What this gave them an additional

(53:45):
forty miles in the range. And again that's something that
would have cost them between I think it was between
six thousand, five hundred and ten thousand dollars. Gave them
to them for free. Really now, I don't know if
they're going to take it away from them. They might,
but anyways, I thought that was interesting that, you know,
you don't get the full capability of a Tesla Model

(54:05):
A S sixty when you buy it. You can you
unless you unless you purchase uh, the additional battery power.
So from Tesla's perspective, they've argued that software limitations on
their vehicles, by by which you and I are defining
it as you know, keeping the vehicle from doing mechanically
what is capable of doing through the use of programming.

(54:28):
They argue that they are limiting performance in order to
increase durability or safety. But to me, with all due respects, Scott,
that just sounds like a uh a really sketchy thing
to do. It kind of reminds me of a thing
that video games do. A lot of video game companies

(54:48):
are into the idea of what they call downloadable content
or DLC, and some of them have been taking heat.
Not enough for them to stop the practice, mind you,
but some of them have been taking heat for do
in things like releasing a game and it's on a disc, right,
and the entire the entirety of everything you can do
in this game is on the disc. However, to unlock it,

(55:12):
you have to pay an additional you know, ten dollars
or twenty dollars, what have you to be able to
play what you would already physically paid for. Oh man,
see that, I hope I was describing this right. I
think you've I think you've got to been That's a
That's a perfect example for gamers or anybody that doesn't
own a Tesla to understand. What I'm talking about is
that the company is putting itself between the owner and

(55:34):
the car. It's like that's customization, I guess. I mean, really,
you you can't really customize it the way that you
you normally would in another type of vehicle. You have
to go to the company to say, yes, I want
this additional power, I want this additional range. So it's
it's kind of a it's really messing with the way
people see the relationship between them and their vehicle. I mean,

(55:56):
because again the company is squarely in between the two
and act, so much so that the sixty and sixt
d models were discontinued. The California based company decided that
clients simply preferred to buy their cars full capability, So
you know, why buy why by a model s sixty
or sixty d um And then you know realize that

(56:17):
it costs you an additional amount of money to get
up to you know, the the the optimal battery power,
which is already in the car. I mean, it's like
it's there. They just have to flip a flip a
switch to unlock it. That's not like when you're opting
to buy a different engine in a car, or you're
opting for you know, different different transmission or something that
provides better performance, whether it's gearing, or you know, whatever

(56:39):
it happens to be. UM, it's a it's a different model.
It's a completely different model for for Tesla, and I
know that's kind of their thing, but but it is
it's a strange way to look at ownership of these things.
I mean, it's it's it's interesting to think that they're
in between the car and the owner as far as
what they're able to do to kind of soup it up,
to fix it up. And who knows, maybe that will

(57:00):
be the wave of the future. Perhaps it's even inevitable
at this point, perhaps we've reached what Malcolm Cladwell would
refer to as a tipping point. What do you think
we want to hear from you? And we hope, UM,
I guess most importantly, we hope that anyone who is
hearing this and has been affected by Hurricanes Harvey or

(57:22):
Irma are safe. UH. You're in a safe place, and
we hope your family is doing all right. If you're
listening to this episode and you are wondering how you
can help, there are innumerable charities that are active in
the area. If you live nearby, UM, you can volunteer
to distribute food. UH, you can help assemble care packages

(57:47):
the Red Crosses there as well, um, both in both
in Texas and as we record in Florida. Seems like
every time you you turn on the radio or television,
you find a place that you know. If you text
a certain number to do this play, I see you'll
donate ten dollars immediately to either Hurricane Irma or Harvey
UM or maybe even both if you're feeling generous that day. Yea,

(58:08):
So please do keep those people in your thoughts and
every little bit helps also. Uh, as we said earlier,
do you have any flood damage car war stories? We'd
like to we'd like to hear them. Oh yeah, the
ones where you inadvertently bought a car that you know
wasn't a flood not that, oh you know what. Maybe

(58:28):
also if you bought a salvage car thinking that it
was something it was a good choice. And if you
ever sold someone a flood damage car, you dirty rascal,
you boy. I don't know if we want to hear
those stories. I feel like I did feel a little
dirty after that. I just wanted to say dirty rascal.
I don't know, I'm kind of freestyle it at this point,
So please do right to us. Let us know. If

(58:50):
you are in the market for a car again in
the wake of these hurricanes this hurricane season, uh, please
do check out our podcast Ten Ways to Spot a
flood Damaged Car before you buy any used vehicle, even
if the title looks okay, even if you trust whomever
selling it, like Ronald Reagan said, trust but verify. We

(59:14):
will be back next week with something probably completely different.
Let say I'm remembering our schedule. But in the meantime,
if you would like more car stuff, you can find
every episode we've ever done on our website car Stuff
Show dot com. And you can spot Scott and I
regularly on Twitter and on Facebook where we are car

(59:34):
Stuff h s W. Hey Scott, you might be saying,
Hey Ben, I've got a great idea that my fellow
listeners will enjoy, but I don't really go in for
all that social media hooplah and shenanigan arid, which is
a word I just made out a good work. It's okay,
it's not my best, the point being that we totally
get it. You can email us directly. We are car

(59:56):
Stuff at how stuff works dot com. M for more
on this and thousands of other topics. This is at
how stuff works dot com. Let us know what you think,
Send an email to podcast at how stuff works dot com.
M hmm,